Sharon Colgan, Marketing Manager, Origin Green Programme, Bord Bia - The Irish Food Board
"Plastic has its place, but that place is not in the environment,” Unilever CEO Alan Jope said in a statement this week announcing their commitment to ‘Get Drastic on Plastic’ by eliminating more than 100K tonnes of plastic packaging, and collecting and processing more plastic packaging than it sells (600,000 tonnes annually) by 2025 creating a circular economy.
Under Paul Pollman’s 10 year reign as CEO, Unilever lead systematic transformational change across their organisation leveraging sustainability to deliver business growth. Pollman and his team at Unilever recognised how they could make transformational impact in key areas relevant to its business while building their company’s positioning around sustainability. Their strategy has inspired many others to embed sustainability into their business by proving the business case for sustainability summed up as: consumers want it, retailers want it, it fuels innovation, it helps develop new markets, it saves money and it inspires and engages people.
This week’s announcement is a confident signal of the continuation of that strategy. Unilever is now the world’s first global consumer packaged good company to commit to an absolute plastics reduction across its portfolio, according to a report in the Financial Times. This commitment will be delivered through investment and partnerships which will hopefully improve the waste management infrastructure in many of the countries in which Unilever operates.
“Our vision is a world in which everyone works together to ensure that plastic stays in the economy and out of the environment” said Jope. This statement signals that this bold commitment cannot be achieved by Unilever alone. It relies on many stakeholders. Jope explicitly called out for collaboration: “We also need you — our consumers, our suppliers, our retailers, our employees and many others — to join us on this journey, because there are things that you can do to make a real difference. So, please help us to close the loop on plastic; and let’s make our blue planet blue again.”
Origin Green companies should take note and stay up to date on Unilever’s progress in this area. Let’s be inspired from this company’s sustainability leadership!